The majority of deportees are being sent back to Mexico, where the bulk of undocumented migrants originate. And some of the towns they come from — are feeling the strain, financially.

In the state of Guanajuato in Mexico, a recent visit to INTERMEX, a company that pays out remittances to families who have relatives working in other countries, the counters were completely empty, except for the tellers.

If remittances fall, it is a problem not only for families, who say they are struggling to make ends meet. It's a problem for this whole country. Money sent by migrant workers is the second-largest source of foreign income in Mexico, only exceeded by oil revenue.

The report is interesting in that it illustrates the shifting angles the open borders establishment is coming at the amnesty from, with condescension and facile economic arguments continuing to fail. The Navarro story features a family geographically split between Guanajuato and Florida. The reliably lugubrious piece laments the male's desire to return home to his family. It's supposedly not possible, as he, out of work (due to workplace raids, it is asserted), cannot scrape up enough to make it back home.

Whether or not it is, there are a few points of interest. For one, the guy is a stone mason. The domestic construction industry isn't exactly booming. That's likely the elephant that's keeping him out of work, not the federal government's isolated high-profile workplace raids.

Secondly, he's allegedly been supporting a family in Mexico (and until recently they lived relatively well) but now is unable to gather up a few hundred bucks to return home? And I thought natives had a problem with their dismal savings rates.

It's also nice to see that the claim that underclass laborers are an economic necessity more-or-less being dropped (take a ten minute refresher course in the basic economics of supply and demand to see how fallacious such an assertion is), although Navarro does briefly relay the woman in Mexico's concerns that the "work isn't getting done" in the US. The idea that natives won't bus tables, no matter how well they're paid, is absurd. Employers of subsidized Latin labor have no inherent right to be able to employ enough people on whatever wages they feel like paying. If they can't find workers, they'll increases the wages they offer. If they can't stay in business doing so, they'll either invent more efficient ways of doing business or they won't belong in the world's most advanced, dynamic economy.

Most importantly, the story suggests the historically proven result of greater border and interior enforcement--that most illegal immigrants leave voluntarily through attrition as a consequence. During President Eisenhower's Operation Wetback, for every one that was deported, seven or eight left on their own volition.

A big chunk of the story is devoted to letting the Mexican woman emphasize how great Mexican migrants are. It's funny how the "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande" bromides illogically suggest that while Mexico is anarchical, thoroughly corrupt, and not particularly industrious, Mexicans are the polar opposite.

In reality, Mexican migrants in the aggregate are about as good as their counterparts who remain in Mexico. The border states, especially California and New Mexico, dispel the preposterous myth that ingesting more Mexicans will somehow make the US less like Mexico.

Tuesday another battle takes place. Contact your Senators and tersely let them know how you feel on 24 hour legalization, increased legal immigration, and a continued delay in the 700 mile fence that should've already been constructed along the US-Mexico border.

There are reasons to be encouraged--Trent Lott backed away from committing to vote for cloture at Feinstein's prompting on Matthews' show. If one of the more open borders members of the GOP is getting cold feet on the amnesty, and only 37 Democrats are supporting it, the outcome looks promising. But don't become complacent. It's critically important to vociferously make yourself heard now to send a lasting message to Congress about who they're supposed to be representing.

3 comments:

JSBolton
said...

I just read a piece which mockedour border defenses, and presumably also those of other countries, as something medieval and insufficiently offensive. That is, not that theycouldn't function defensively if extended, but that our policiesare not totally offensive, would have been the implication.Actually we need both capacities, with the emphasis on defense.Openness is questionable in so many ways as an ideal, which is why I've just published on that subject, and this site been given a place in the sidebar.Very few raise the alarm over these issues, in an intelligent and articulate way, and it is much needed for more to do this.

http://jsbolton.blogspot.com/on blogger.complease do take a look at it,especially since your site is in the sidebar links.It's only a few days old, set up by a novice, myself, with imstructions and initial work done by a teenage relative.